LONDON — Born a slave on Staten Island in 1763, Bill Richmond left America in 1777, never to return, and spent most of his life in Britain. But it was not until he was 40 years old that he began bare-knuckle boxing — a brutal sport that brought him fame, prestige and an invitation to the coronation of King George IV.

Yet even in his adopted country, where he has been called the world’s first black sporting superstar — or stereotype, some would say — Mr. Richmond’s remarkable life story is largely forgotten.

Now, almost two centuries after his death, in 1829, he is back in the limelight as a search begins in earnest for Mr. Richmond’s remains.

As part of a rail upgrade, one of London’s main stations is being redeveloped, prompting the excavation of a burial ground containing the remains of an estimated 45,000 Londoners, including Mr. Richmond.

As archaeologists pick their way through the huge site, clearing topsoil with diggers and exhuming by hand those buried here, they are hoping to identify and rebury the boxer who transcended the raw racism of his age to emerge a sporting hero. For his fans, this is a big moment.

“He was the pioneer of black sporting endeavor,” said Luke G. Williams, author of a biography “Richmond Unchained,” who sees his subject as the forerunner of giants like Jesse Owens and Muhammad Ali. “He was the first black sportsman to achieve celebrity. There had been no one before him who had reached that level of national prominence.”

Mr. Richmond took the name of the town on Staten Island where he grew up as a slave in the household of Richard Charlton, rector of St. Andrews — and perhaps, Mr. Williams thinks, his unacknowledged father.

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The burial ground under excavation contains the remains of an estimated 45,000 Londoners, including Bill Richmond.CreditHS2 Ltd

His book dismisses as a case of mistaken identity one theory that Mr. Richmond served, at the age of 13, as hangman at the execution of the American revolutionary Nathan Hale in 1776.

Nevertheless, it was thanks to an English officer, Brig. Gen. Hugh Percy, that Mr. Richmond won his freedom, left America and gained some education in England, where he trained as a cabinet maker.

His first fights may have been provoked by racial taunts, but his sporting career began when he was employed by Thomas Pitt, the second Lord Camelford and Baron of Boconnoc — a boxing enthusiast and swashbuckling aristocrat whose turbulent life scandalized Georgian England before his death at 29 in a typically reckless duel.

Mr. Richmond not only began the brutal sport of bare-knuckle fighting at age 40, but also continued into his mid-50s, winning 17 contests and losing just twice. He mentored another freed slave, Tom Molineaux, and instructed the essayist William Hazlitt (and according to some accounts, Lord Byron) in sparring. So prominent was Mr. Richmond that he was among a group of pugilists invited to the coronation of George IV in 1821 to act as ushers.

Little is known about his English wife, Mary, except that she was white, or about their several children. But Mr. Williams argues that Mr. Richmond had straddled both race and class divisions of his time: his education and proximity to the wealthy made him more socially adept than many English-born boxers who rose from abject poverty.

To some, that only illustrates the limitations placed upon black people, some of which remain. “There has always been a route to black exceptionalism through sport,” said Kehinde Andrews, professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, who added that boxing success still reinforced some stereotypes attached to black people.

“Of course, it’s not bad that he was a celebrity,” said Professor Andrews, but his story tells us little about the mainly wretched conditions of a population of around 15,000 black people living in Britain in the late 18th century.

Moreover, his vehicle of social advancement — a vicious and dangerous sport — says much about the limited prospects for black people. “If there were other things he could be doing, why boxing?” Professor Andrews said.

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An illustration of the boxer Bill Richmond, who took the name of the town on Staten Island where he grew up as a slave. In Britain, he achieved great fame, taking up bare-knuckle fighting at age 40.

In any event, almost two centuries after his death, the spotlight has fallen on Mr. Richmond again because of a high-speed rail project that has prompted the renovation of Euston Station in the north of the city.

The work means digging up graveyards in London and Birmingham, as well as other historic sites along the route, in what Mike Court, the lead archaeologist for the first phase of High Speed 2, describes as Britain’s “biggest ever archaeological project.”

After his death, Mr. Richmond was buried in the graveyard next to St. James church, which was built in 1789 but demolished in the 1960s. Other prominent people laid to rest here included Capt. Matthew Flinders, who led the first circumnavigation of Australia, and James Christie, who founded Christie’s auctioneers in 1766.

But burials stopped in 1853, and around 1887, the cemetery was turned into a public garden.

Archaeologists have been surprised how well London’s damp clay soil has preserved skeletonized remains and some wooden coffins.

“Some of the coffins that we are finding look like they were put into the ground last week — really, really amazing,” said Mr. Court, speaking near the huge site, where about 160 archaeologists and dozens of construction and support staff are working.

He expects the excavation to yield a wealth of information for social historians about the diet, health, migration patterns and environment of the period. (The small number of lead coffins will not be opened.)

Mr. Williams hopes that if Mr. Richmond’s skeleton is recovered, it may provide DNA clues about his parentage. Were he the son of the rector, that would make him the uncle of Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American-born woman to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, Mr. Williams said.

If archaeologists are lucky, the name plate on Mr. Richmond’s coffin may have survived. Otherwise, it may be possible to identify him from the fractures he undoubtedly suffered or from an injury to his knee that he carried throughout his fighting career.

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Archaeologists have been surprised how well London’s damp clay soil has preserved skeletonized remains and some wooden coffins.CreditHS2 Ltd

But are Mr. Richmond’s remains still there?

Although burial records suggest they are, archaeologists cannot be certain because parts of the graveyard were dug up in the late 1800s.

Of an estimated 45,000 remains still thought to have avoided destruction, about 1,500 have been recovered so far, and Mr. Richmond’s are not among them.

“We know that they were buried in this burial ground; what we don’t know is whereabouts in the burial ground,“ said Mr. Court, who, nonetheless, described the prospects of success as good.

In 19th-century England, the social hierarchy was as rigid in death as in life, with the wealthy buried closest to the church. The part of the graveyard that was lost included a big slice at the other end of the plot, where poorer folks were laid to rest.

And that may have included Mr. Richmond who, despite his sporting success and later career as a boxing instructor and pub landlord, ended life in straitened financial circumstances.

He was not friendless, however, and Mr. Richmond overcame years of professional rivalry to become firm friends with Tom Cribb, perhaps the best-known English boxer of his day, who by then was landlord of the Union Arms pub.

Mr. Richmond spent the last evening of his life at the pub in Central London — renamed the Tom Cribb — that now bears a plaque in memory of the “freed slave, boxer, entrepreneur.”

If his remains are found, there could be another memorial, and Mr. Williams welcomes the fresh attention afforded his sporting hero.

“I want more people to know his story,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Digging Deep to Honor A Bare-Knuckle Pioneer. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe